


The Longest Word

by septicwheelbarrow



Category: X-Men (Movies), X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Cancer, M/M, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-21
Updated: 2013-11-21
Packaged: 2018-01-02 06:20:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,363
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1053505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/septicwheelbarrow/pseuds/septicwheelbarrow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I'm Charles Xavier," he says, smiling from ear to ear.  Then he gestures to his wheelchair. "Terminal spinal osteoblastoma, reaper due to collect in a year."</p>
<p>After some time, the man gestures at himself with a sardonic smile. "Same, one year. Lung." And then, reluctant, as if trying to keep his name to himself, "Erik."</p>
<p><i>I reject your reality and substitute my own.</i> Doesn't really work that way, both ways.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Longest Word

On Tuesday, Charles meets Erik by a water cooler.

"I'm Charles Xavier," he says, smiling from ear to ear.  Then he gestures to his wheelchair. "Terminal spinal osteoblastoma, reaper due to collect in a year."

The man's eyes flit across his face, then his chair, then the violently pink book on his lap depicting artfully intertwined Victorian nudes. He stares at the book for quite some time, and Charles knows what the man might think, but he gave up on being flustered twenty catheters ago. After some time, the man finally tears his eyes away from the book, gesturing at himself with a sardonic smile. "Same, one year. Lung." And then, reluctant, as if trying to keep his name to himself, "Erik."

"Very pleased to meet you, Erik. I would normally shake your hand but right now my arms feel like they might fall off."

"Is this a regular occurrence for you?" Erik asks, looking somewhat flummoxed. Come to think of it, he's been looking somewhat flummoxed the moment Charles spoke to him.

"My arms falling off? No. As you can see, I have both."

" _I noticed_ ," Erik says, sounding amused and exasperated at once. "No, I meant the talking to the other patients thing."

"Ah," Charles pauses. Much to his chagrin, a flush threatens to crawl up his cheeks. "The nurses have occasionally hinted that I annoy other patients with my nosiness."

To his credit, Erik's lips quirk. "And I can see you take their advice to heart."

"As long as they continue to circumnavigate their point I will deliberately remain obtuse."

"Don't they scold you about it?"

"No," Charles laughs. "They've been very nice."

Erik's eyes take on a sort of hard, impenetrable quality. "I see," he says, clipped. "Dead people can get away with anything, it seems."

Charles blinks. Erik is staring on him with near-uncomfortable intensity. It feels like a test, and perhaps it is. With a twitch of his finger he beckons Erik over, and Erik, curious, does. In a conspiratorial whisper, Charles says to Erik's ear, "I don't know how to tell you this, my friend." He makes a show of looking around in fear. "But _we appear to be not dead."_ "

Erik stares at him for a second, longer, and then bursts out laughing. He doesn't stop for some time. All the while, Charles has this fluttery feeling in his chest that means he's in danger.

"See you," Charles says, on Tuesday, right before the nurse wheels him away.

"See you," Erik replies, after some time.

 

 

 

There is nothing in the world you can do to convince Erik that Charles Francis Xavier is not made out of sugar. Sweet, tooth-rotting, cloying sugar.

Erik fucking hates sugar. "Go away," he says, shoving at the tweed-clad menace in the wheelchair. He's so tired that he ends up almost leaning on the damn chair instead. "Shoo. Be optimistic, _elsewhere."_

"No, listen," Charles coos, eager as he reads a disgustingly motivational passage from one the pamphlets he's holding. "I have so many of these, look."

"I'm not buying."

"Good because these are free," Charles chirps, pushing a bunch of brightly colored pieces of paper to Erik's arms. _This man is insane._ "Help me read them."

"No." Erik shoves the pamphlets back to Charles' lap, with more force than necessary. Which isn't much at all, considering he's about as weak as a toothpick. Goddamn chemo.

"So many pamphlets," Charles repeats, looking overwhelmed as an avalanche of papers tumble out of his lap. "When I get out of here I bet I can build a library out of these." He sounds morose, but it's not the tone that gives Erik pause.

" _'When'_ ," Erik says, incredulous.

Charles tilts his head. "Well."

Suddenly Erik is so, so irrationally angry. "You still think you'll be cured."

There is a pause. And then, Charles says, quiet, "You think you're already dead." How dare he look sad, how dare he -

"Of course I'm already dead," Erik gasps, and Charles looks so _fucking_ sad, and Erik wants to flay him with all the reasons - he's stuck here, he's waiting, and sometimes _he can't even fucking breathe_ \- but his goddamn lungs catch up to him and his words are lost to a violent bout of coughs.

It hurts, of course it fucking hurts, but he snarls at any nurse that tries to approach him, because this happens far too often to care about and there's nothing anyone can do about it. Erik just has to deal with the stretch of time in which his ribs feel like they might crack.

After, Charles stares at him, looking pinched.

"What," Erik rasps, wiping the mucus off his chin, "never seen a man die before?"

"You don't need to go so far to prove your point, my friend," Charles says, mild, and what do you know, the asshole's laughing.

 

 

 

"They call it terminal for a reason," Erik says.

"Some people make it through," Charles replies, with as much conviction as he can. "Miracles exist as long as you're still alive."

"Terminal," Erik grits, "Adjective. _Incurable_."

Charles jabs a finger at Erik's chest, and a jolt of fire courses through his arm. "Heartbeat, noun. _Alive._ "

Erik turns to him, fury in his eyes, and grabs his shoulder. It might be a stupid move, because it _hurts_ and Charles very nearly screams. He probably does, a little, but he doesn't remember much with the way it feels like his body's trying to burst out of his skin.

Erik's eyes widen and he lets go instantly. "Shit," he says, taking a step back. He looks at loss with what to do with his hands. "I - I'm so sorry."

"This is ridiculous," Charles says, half-crying, half-laughing. His spine still feels likes it's on fire, but that's not going away anytime soon. "We're too sick to fight. Stop this nonsense at once!"

"Only if you accept that we _will_ die," Erik says, probably also crying.

"Ah, you see, future tense. I won already." Charles winks, despite the fact that he's pretty much burning out of his skin.

 

 

 

By some sort of miracle, Charles manages to foist half a dozen pamphlets to Erik, who accepts them with his usual humilty and grace.

"Fuck you," Erik says, crumpling three of the pamphlets into a ball. At Charles' accusing gaze he practically rips the fourth pamhplet open. "This shit is yellow. And this - this _smiley face_ is offensive. What the hell are they smiling about?"

"Not everyone broods with such expertise as you, Erik. Be more understanding."

"There's nothing to understand," Erik snarls. Then he jabs a finger in Charles' direction. "You, I bet you buy into the whole 'fight' cancer thing, don't you?"

Charles doesn't, not really, but he says, "It helps some people."

"It's bullshit, is what it is!" Erik says, nearly shaking. "Your own fucking cells are destroying your own fucking body! There is nothing _-_ absolutely nothing - _nothing_ to fight!"

His eyes are burning and Charles can see how hard he's struggling to speak. Charles thinks Erik must hate it, being so out of control in his own body. "You're right," Charles says, before Erik hurts himself. "You're right," Charles says, because he is, in the end.

"Wha -" Erik stutters, looking confused and dizzy with a lack of air, and Charles wills him to _breathe_. "I am?"

_Oh, Erik._ "That's what I said."

Erik slumps into an armchair and lobs Charles a sideways grin. Charles doesn't mention that it looks weak. "Never thought I'd see you give up so easily."

"I said that envisioning cancer as a battle helps some people," Charles murmurs, carefully. "I didn't say I personally subscribe to that belief."

Erik wheezes out a laugh. "Worked myself up to a rage for nothing, huh?"

"I wouldn't say that, my friend." Charles smiles. "The rant was very informative, at any rate."

In a strange, faraway voice, Erik says, "It is, isn't it." He's looking at Charles with an intensity no one has ever matched, and there is a gentle quirk to his lips that should seem out of place, but not really. Charles finds himself transfixed. A second. Two.

Still looking at Charles, Erik opens his mouth to speak. The words are blurted in a hurry, "You know what, let's play a drinking game."

Whatever it is Charles expected Erik to say, that's not it. In fact, that is very far from it. "What? We're not exactly open bar, here."

A certain gleam passes over Erik's eyes, the kind that means he has an idea. Usually a bad idea. "With water," Erik says, rolling his eyes as if Charles has done him a great disservice. He stands and straightens the pamphlets he crumpled, then he saunters to the water dispenser and fills two plastic cups to the brim. "Here." He passes one to Charles. "Take a sip whenever there's the word 'fight' or a synonym of it in the pamphlet. First one to go to the toilet loses."

"...I have a catheter," Charles enunciates. As ideas go, this one isn't the best.

"Then I'll have to count on your honesty. C'mon. It'll be fun."

Opening his palms, Charles says, "I honestly say I can't refuse."

Turns out Charles isn't above cheating to win a drinking game. Who knew.

 

 

 

Sometimes they watch cancer movies and read cancer books and do all kinds of cancer things. Charles muses - loudly - about the tropes and stereotypes and emotions in common between everything that has the word 'cancer' appended to them.

Charles calls it 'a shared experience'.

Erik calls it 'sensationalist pity-orgy bullshit for healthy assholes'.

 

 

 

"The thing about this," Erik begins. "The thing is," he repeats, "once you get cancer, you stop being a person. You live, you're a story. You die, you're a statistic. Five-year survival rate, blah blah, take a room number. And when you die, they clean the room and some other asshole's gonna take your place."

Charles frowns. "Are you saying the doctors and the nurses don't care? Not even when they're trying so hard?"

"Charles, please." His voice sounds tired. It's this voice that's the reason why the nurses think he's much older than Charles, even though they're about the same age. "This hospital alone gets thousands of patients each year. No one cares about the dying. To them, you're a number and a nobody."

It should sound bereft, to be a number and a nobody. But, before cancer, before the wheelchair, what was Charles, really? Son, student, person - it's hard, when Charles cares to think about it, to define himself objectively. At best, his list of accomplishments can be summed up in a transcript, and according to some news sources he's worth a few million dollars.

Charles thinks about Kurt and Sharon and Cain, of estates and inheritance and piles of money chasing each other by their tails. He thinks about himself, the type of person to exchange smiles with strangers that he won't likely meet again - smiles that he means, sometimes, but mostly a reflex, like something to tick in a to-do-list: smile at ten strangers, do three acts of kindness, done. He is a lesson in three o'clock etiquette and thirteen polite conversation topics for brunch, and scheduled functions and dinners alone in rooms that can hold three hundred people but only admits one.

"I think, in a way," Charles speaks, the cadence of his voice soft and rueful, "I've always been a number."

"Well," Erik says after a while. "I've always been a nobody, so that fits, huh."

Charles doesn't believe him, and he tells Erik this. Even if just for a second, Erik looks like he trusts him.

 

 

 

Next to the violently pink Harlequin - fucking _Harlequin_ \- novel Charles has on his lap is something that looks like a flyswatter but is more likely to be a fan. The flyswatter is, like every goddamn thing in this goddamn hospital, a pale pink color. "Pink?" Erik says, less teasing and more offensive.

With his best self-righteous expression plastered all over his face, Charles says. "It's Breast Cancer Awareness month."

They've had this conversation twice just today. Still, Erik scoffs. "Marketing ploy. You know cancer is an industry, right?"

Charles doesn't bite, however. "Yes, but if there's no money to be made no one would research it."

Erik pauses, then grins.

 

 

 

"I mean to ask, Charles," Erik says one day out of the blue. There's so little that Erik asks for, so Charles can't help feeling a little giddy, even if Erik's probably just asking him to pass a water bottle or some sort. "What the hell are those things you keep carrying?" Erik points to the book on his lap, and even his gesture looks indignant. Charles never knew that a finger could be so emotive.

"This?" Charles says, holding up _Summer's Sizzling Affair_.

"Yes, that." Erik nods, and his face is blank like he doesn't know what to express.

"It's a novel. Harlequin, as you're often so eager to point out."

"I know _that._ What about?"

"Summer as in season, sizzling as in euphemism, affair as in very far from the business kind. That's the title, and it's self-explanatory."

Erik's lips twitch. "Charles," he says, in that imploring way that means he's amused but would never ever show it. He seats himself against the arm of the wheelchair, as close to Charles as he can, and his fingers draw invisible loops on Charles' wrist.

Charles wonders if he should tell, because in theory it seems foolish and child-like and rather stupid, but then they're both going to die, so. "Sometimes I like to annotate."

Erik's fingers tickle. It's nice. "What?" Erik says.

"Now you're being daft."

"What can be there to _annotate?"_

"I make changes," Charles says, turning to his book. "'He kissed her like he was dying,'" he reads. "Dying isn't very romantic, is it? 'He kissed her like he was _alive_ ', there."

Charles knows what Erik will say even before he says it, but it never ceases to feel a little bit like a pinch. Maybe a bee sting. Erik sighs. "The story's never gonna change, no matter how many words you replace."

"It does for me."

"Dreamer," Erik says, warm fingers now carding through his hair. He's looking at Charles with such unrestrained wonder, eyes glittering, his voice gone soft and fond - and it's not like a sting at all. Charles savors every sensation.

"Grump," Charles replies. He's smiling, equally fond, and nudges their shoulders together.

 

 

 

"There's a line from this book - can't remember the title - but to paraphrase: 'I would like to drown, like bubbles, and in the deep dark waters no one would remember me. I'm certain I would find such a death soothing, actually.'"

Raising an eyebrow, Erik comments, "Poetic. Harlequin?"

"Shut up. No."

"Bubbles don't drown."

"I said _shut up_."

"They really don't," Erik says, quietly. His hand reaches up to ruffle Charles' hair, lingering for longer than necessary, and Charles breathes in, out, in.

 

 

 

Then something like this happens:

"Erik," Charles says, out of the blue, barreling into the common room as fast as he can. "Hi, good morning. I want to give you a blowjob."

Erik gapes.

"What," Charles says, drawing out his syllables. If this was a movie he would be taking a drag from a cigarette. "Too blunt?"

Erik opens and closes his mouth like a fish. Then, after deciding what he wants to say, says another thing entirely. "Ever heard of this thing called context?"

"The meaning came across quite well, though, I feel," Charles says, brow raised, red red lips stretched in a wide grin. Then he laughs, sheepish. "Not that I can follow through, mind. I'd settle for a kiss."

In that moment, Erik _wants_ him, wants so badly to kiss him.

In a moment of insanity, he does.

It takes them an embarrassingly short time to run out of air. They gasp, afterwards, hot breaths mingling, and Erik's chest launches a painful protest. But they laugh and they kissed, oh, they kissed as if they are alive.

 

 

 

In the quiet moments when the world shrinks/expands to the two of them:

"What made you say it?"

"Just that I thought I'd like to kiss you at least once. You know, before we die."

After a moment, Erik speaks, raw and a bit shaky, "I'm glad you did it."

"Me too," Charles whispers.

 

 

 

The next day in the common room Erik finds himself curiously happy - this kind of happiness is unsettling, a restless buzzing beneath his ribcage that he can't attribute to sick lungs. Erik's not used to being happy, and he doesn't know what to feel about it.

"Happy Opposite Day," Charles says as he wheels into the common room.

Erik looks up from where he's been staring at his nails. "You're just making up days," he says. After a moment of hesitation, he bends down to kiss Charles hello.

Charles beams, flushed, and Erik - Erik is so doomed. "The pediatric ward is celebrating it. During Opposite Day, it's lucky to have cancer and also they get balloons and cake. I say we should jump on the bandwagon."

"Hurrah for being lucky one day of the year," and Erik probably shouldn't sound so bitter, but the words come out that way regardless.

"Oh," Charles says, eyes twinkling, "but we're the lucky ones regardless, my friend."

"Lucky, really?"

He nods, and says, in his best professorial tone, "The combined probability of us having our particular afflictions - me with my spinal osteoblastoma and you with your never-smoker early-onset large-cell carcinoma - is less than 1%. If you think about it, getting cancer is like winning the lottery."

Erik snorts. Charles is great, really, except in days when the sun rises out of the crack of his ass and rainbows spew out of his mouth. "Remind me again of the part where lottery winners spend the rest of their life feeding through tubes?"

Charles grins, shameless. "You know, it's Opposite Day."

"Opposite Day is just an excuse to get me to agree with you."

"Well, now you know. Congratulations on winning the cancer, Mr. Lehnsherr!" Charles exclaims, giggling, ignoring the horrified looks of some of the patients' visitors. "What's the first thing you plan to do with it?"

After some thought, Erik shrugs.

In lieu of words, he kisses Charles again, again, again, until he feels like he's had enough. But it's not. Not nearly.

"Lucky," Charles whispers, into the space between their lips. Erik - happiness blossoming in his chest and all - knows exactly what he means.

 

 

 

On Tuesday, Erik touches his forehead to Charles'. There might be tears, but Charles knows enough about Erik to pretend not to see them. "You," Erik whispers, his voice hoarse. "You make me want too many things."

_Same,_ Charles thinks, _but I've always wanted too many things._

 

 

 

It's almost been a year.

"You know," Charles whispers when Erik is listening. His voice is a reedy thing. "I don't believe that we're numbers. Or nobodies. I think we can..." he takes a breath, "Even if just this moment, this last year or so. Right now we're being people."

In response, Erik tightens his grip on Charles' hand.

"For what it's worth," Charles says, later when the evening is quiet and most of the other patients are half-asleep. The evening is quiet, sunlight filtering in through the blinds, and maybe they're both crying. "I'll remember you. Not your disease. You."

Erik couldn't say _I will too_ , but Charles smiles and understands anyway.

"See you soon," Charles says, like every day that they've met.

"See you soon," Erik replies, for every day that they will.

 

 

 

Next Tuesday, Erik doesn't make it to the common room.

Charles sits stone still in his wheelchair, vision blurred and watery, staring at the second hand of the clock going _tick tick tick_. He stays there until the nurse wheels him away.

That night he buries himself in their last words to each other. And remembers -

_see you soon_

\- just that.

 

 

 

Later, when asked about Erik Lehnsherr, Charles smiles.

"I remember him," he says. Then he tilts his chin up to the skies, sparrow-like and wondering. "And he remembers me."

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading!
> 
> The book Charles (and by extension, me) paraphrased is an actual book that exists, and that I can't remember. I remember reading it, though, and finding it the most beautiful and also the most obnoxiously pretentious thing I've ever read.
> 
> I hope I have not offended anyone with this fic with my depiction of cancer. If I have, please know that I am truly sorry.


End file.
